Nanfoodle lifted one foot and drew little circles on the floor with his toes. Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, the gnome presented an image of uncertainty and trepidation. Bruenor and Hralien, who had been sitting discussing their next moves when Nanfoodle and Regis had entered the dwarf's private quarters, looked at each other with confusion.
"Well if ye can't get it translated, then so be it," Bruenor said, guessing at the source of the gnome's consternation. "But ye're to keep working on it, don't ye doubt!"
Nanfoodle looked up, glanced at Regis, then bolstered by Regis's nod, turned back to the dwarf king and squared his shoulders. "It is an ancient language, based on the Dwarvish tongue," he explained. "It has roots in Hulgorkyn, perhaps, and Dethek runes for certain."
"Thought I'd recognized a couple o' the scribbles," Bruenor replied.
"Though it is more akin to the proper Orcish," Nanfoodle explained, and Bruenor gasped.
"Dworcish?" Regis remarked with a grin, but he was the only one who found any humor in it.
"Ye're telling me that the durned orcs took part of me Delzoun ancestors' words?" Bruenor asked.
Nanfoodle shook his head. "How this language came about is a mystery whose answer is beyond the parchments you brought to me. From what I can tell of the proportion of linguistic influence, you've juxtaposed the source and add."
"What in the Nine Hells are ye babblin' about?" Bruenor asked, his voice beginning to take on an impatient undercurrent.
"Seems more like old Dwarvish with added pieces from old Orcish," Regis explained, drawing Bruenor's scowl his way and taking it off of Nanfoodle, who seemed to be withering before the unhappy dwarf king with still the most important news forthcoming.
"Well, they needed to talk to the dogs to tell them what's what," said Bruenor, but both Regis and Nanfoodle shook their heads with every word.
"It was deeper than that," Regis said, stepping up beside the gnome. "The dwarves didn't borrow orc phrases, they integrated the language into their own."
"Something that would have taken years, even decades, to come into being," said Nanfoodle. "Such language blending is common throughout the history of all the races, but it occurs, every time, because of familiarity and cultural bonds."
Silence came back at the pair, and Bruenor and Hralien looked to each other repeatedly. Finally, Bruenor found the courage to ask directly, "What are ye saying?"
"Dwarves and orcs lived together, side-by-side, in the city you found," said Nanfoodle.
Bruenor's eyes popped open wide, his strong hands slapped against the arms of his chair, and he came forward as if he meant to leap out and throttle both the gnome and the halfling.
"For years," Regis added as soon as Bruenor settled back.
The dwarf looked at Hralien, seeming near panic.
"There is a town called Palishchuk in the wastes of Vaasa on the other side of Anauroch," the elf said with a shrug, as if the news was not as unexpected and impossible as it seemed. "Half-orcs, one and all, and strong allies with the goodly races of the region."
"Half-orcs?" Bruenor roared back at him. "Half-orcs're half-humans, and that lot'd take on a porcupine if the durned spines didn't hurt so much! But we're talkin' me kin here. Me ancestors!"
Hralien shrugged again, as if it wasn't so shocking, and Bruenor stopped sputtering long enough to catch the fact that the elf might be having a bit of fun with the revelation, at the dwarf's expense.
"We don't know that these were your ancestors," Regis remarked.
"Gauntlgrym's the home o' Delzoun!" Bruenor snapped.
"This wasn't Gauntlgrym," said Nanfoodle, after clearing his throat. "It wasn't," he reiterated when Bruenor's scowl fell over him fully.
"What was it, then?"
"A town called Baffenburg," said Nanfoodle.
"Never heared of it."
"Nor had I," the gnome replied. "It probably dates from around the time of Gauntlgrym, but it was surely not the city described in your histories. Not nearly that size, or with that kind of influence."
"That which we saw of it was probably the extent of the main town," Regis added. "It wasn't Gauntlgrym."
Bruenor fell back in his seat, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. He wanted to argue, but had no facts with which to do so. As he considered things, he recognized that he'd never had any evidence that the hole in the ground led to Gauntlgrym, that he had no maps that indicated the ancient Delzoun homeland to be anywhere near that region. All that had led him to believe that it was indeed Gauntlgrym was his own fervent desire, his faith that he had been returned to Mithral Hall by the graces of Moradin for that very purpose.
Nanfoodle started to talk, but Bruenor silenced him and waved both him and Regis away.
"This does not mean that there is nothing of value..." Regis started to say, but again, Bruenor waved his hand, dismissing them both - then dismissing Hralien with a gesture, as well, for at that terrible moment of revelation, with orcs attacking and Alustriel balking at decisive action, the crestfallen dwarf king wanted only to be alone.
"Still here, elf?" Bruenor asked when he saw Hralien inside Mithral Hall the next morning. "Seeing the beauty o' dwarf ways, then?"
Hralien shared the dwarf king's resigned chuckle. "I am interested in watching the texts unmasked. And I would be re - " He stopped and studied Bruenor for a moment then added, "It is good to see you in such fine spirits this day. I had worried that the gnome's discovery from yesterday would cloak you in a dour humor."
Bruenor waved a hand dismissively. "He's just scratched the scribblings. Might be that some dwarves were stupid enough to trust the damned orcs. Might be that they paid for it with their city and their lives - and that might be a lesson for yer own folk and for Lady Alustriel and the rest of them that's hesitating in driving Obould back to his hole. Come with me, if ye're wantin', for I'm on me way to the gnome now. He and Rumblebelly have worked the night through, on me orders. I'm to take their news to Alustriel and her friends out working on the wall. Speak for the Moonwood in that discussion, elf, and let's be setting our plans together."
Hralien nodded and followed Bruenor through the winding tunnels and to the lower floors, and a small candlelit room where Regis and Nanfoodle were hard at work. Parchment had been spread over several tables, held in place by paperweights. The aroma of lavender permeated the room, a side-effect from Nanfoodle's preservation potions that had been carefully applied to each of the ancient writings, and to the tapestry, which had been hung on one wall. Most of its image remained obscured, but parts of it had been revealed. That vision made Bruenor cringe, for the orcs and dwarves visible in the drawing were not meeting in battle or even in parlay. They were together, intermingled, going about their daily business.
Regis, who sat off to the side transcribing some text, greeted the pair as they entered, but Nanfoodle didn't even turn around, hunched as he was over a parchment, his face pressed close to the cracked and faded page.
"Ye're not looking so tired, Rumblebelly," Bruenor greeted accusingly.
"I'm watching a lost world open before my eyes," he replied. "I'm sure that I will fall down soon enough, but not now."
Bruenor nodded. "Then ye're saying that the night showed ye more o' the old town," he said.
"Now that we have broken the code of the language, the pace improves greatly," said Nanfoodle, never turning from the parchment he was studying. "You retrieved some interesting texts on your journey."
Bruenor stared at him for a few heartbeats, expecting him to elaborate, but soon realized that the gnome was fully engulfed by his work once more. The dwarf turned to Regis instead.
"The town was mostly dwarves at first," Regis explained. He hopped up from his chair and moved to one of the many side tables, glanced at the parchment spread there, and moved along to the next in line. "This one," he explained, "talks about how the orcs were growing more numerous. They were coming in from all around, but most of the dwarven ties remained to places like Gauntlgrym, which was of course belowground and more appealing to a dwarf's sensibilities."
"So it was an unusual community?" Hralien asked.
Regis shrugged, for he couldn't be certain.
Bruenor looked to Hralien and nodded smugly in apparent vindication, and certainly the elf and the halfling understood that Bruenor did not want his history intertwined with that of the foul orcs!
"But it was a lasting arrangement," Nanfoodle intervened, finally looking up from the parchment. "Two centuries at least."
"Until the orcs betrayed me ancestors," Bruenor insisted.
"Until something obliterated the town, melting the permafrost and dropping the whole of it underground in a sudden and singular catastrophe," Nanfoodle corrected. "And not one of orc making. Look at the tapestry on the wall - it remained in place after the fall of Baffenburg, and certainly it would have been removed if that downfall had been precipitated by one side or the other. I don't believe that there were 'sides,' my king."
"And how're ye knowing that?" Bruenor demanded. "That scroll tellin' ye that?"
"There is no indication of treachery on the part of the orcs - at least not near the end of the arrangement," the gnome explained, hopping down from his bench and moving to yet another parchment across from the table where Regis stood. "And the tapestry...Early on, there were problems. A single orc chieftain held the orcs in place beside the dwarves. He was murdered."
"By the dwarves?" Hralien asked.
"By his own," said Nanfoodle, moving to another parchment. "And a time of unrest ensued."
"Seemin' to me that the whole time was a time of unrest," Bruenor said with a snort. "Ye can't be living with damned orcs!"
"Off and on unrest, from what I can discern," Nanfoodle agreed. "And it seemed to get better through the years, not worse."
"Until the orcs brought an end to it," Bruenor grumbled. "Suddenly, and with orc treachery."
"I do not believe..." Nanfoodle started to reply.
"But ye're guessin', and not a thing more," said Bruenor. "Ye just admitted that ye don't know what brought the end."
"Every indication - "
"Bah! But ye're guessing."
Nanfoodle conceded the point with a bow. "I would very much like to go to this city and build a workshop there, in the library. You have uncovered something fascinating, King Bru - "
"When the time's for it," Bruenor interrupted. "Right now I'm seeing the call of them words. Get rid of Obould and the orcs'll fall apart, as we were expecting from the start. This is our battle call, gnome. This is why Moradin sent me back here and told me to go to that hole, Gauntlgrym or not!"
"But that's not..." Nanfoodle started to argue, but his voice trailed away, for it was obvious that Bruenor paid him no heed.
His head bobbing with excitement and vigor, Bruenor had already turned to Hralien. He swatted the elf on the shoulder and swept Hralien up in his wake as he quick-stepped from the room, pausing only to berate Nanfoodle, "And I'm still thinking it's Gauntlgrym!"
Nanfoodle looked helplessly at Regis. "The possibilities...." the gnome remarked.
"We've all our own way of looking at the world, it would seem," Regis answered with a shrug that seemed almost embarrassed for Bruenor.
"Is this find not an example?"
"Of what?" asked Regis. "We do not even know how it ended, or why it ended."
"Drizzt has whispered of the inevitability of Obould's kingdom," Nanfoodle reminded him.
"And Bruenor is determined that it will not be. The last time I looked, Bruenor, and not Drizzt, commanded the army of Mithral Hall and the respect of the surrounding kingdoms."
"A terrible war is about to befall us," said the gnome.
"One begun by King Obould Many-Arrows," the halfling replied.
Nanfoodle sighed and looked at the many parchment sheets spread around the room. It took all his willpower to resist the urge to rush from table to table and crumble them to dust.
"His name was Bowug Kr'kri," Regis explained to Bruenor, presenting more of the deciphered text to the dwarf king.
"An orc?"
"An orc philosopher and wizard," the halfling replied. "We think the statues we saw in the library were of him, and maybe his disciples."
"So he's the one who brought the orcs into the dwarf city?"
"We think."
"The two of ye do a lot o' thinking for so little answering," Bruenor growled.
"We have only a few old texts," Regis replied. "It's all a riddle, still."
"Guesses."
"Speculation," said Regis. "But we know that the orcs lived there with the dwarves, and that Bowug Kr'kri was one of the leaders of the community."
"Any better guesses on how long that town lived? Ye said centuries, but I'm not for believin' ye."
Regis shrugged and shook his head. "It had to be over generations. You saw the structures, and the language."
"And how many o' them structures were built by the dwarfs afore the orcs came in?" Bruenor asked with a sly smile.
Regis had no answer.
"Might've been a dwarf kingdom taken down by trusting the damned orcs," Bruenor said. "Fool dwarfs who took much o' the orc tongue to try to be better neighbors to the treacherous dogs."
"We don't think - "
"Ye think too much," Bruenor interrupted. "Yerself and the gnome're all excited about finding something so different than that which we're knowin' to be true. If ye're just finding more o' the same, then it's just more o' the same. But if ye're findin' something to make yer eyes go wide enough to fall out o' their holes, then that's something to dance about."
"We didn't invent that library, or the statues inside it," Regis argued, but he was talking into as smug and sure an expression as he had ever seen. And he wasn't sure, of course, that Bruenor's reasoning was wrong, for indeed, he and Nanfoodle were doing a lot of guessing. The final puzzle picture was far from complete. They hadn't even yet assembled the borders of the maze, let alone filled in the interior details.
Hralien walked into the room then, answering a summons Bruenor had sent out for him earlier.
"It's coming clear, elf," Bruenor greeted him. "That town's a warning. If we're following Alustriel's plans, we're to wind up a dead and dust-covered artifact for a future dwarf king to discover."
"My own people are as guilty as is Alustriel in wanting to find a stable division, King Bruenor," Hralien admitted. "The idea of crossing the Surbrin to do battle with Obould's thousands is daunting - it will not be attempted without great sorrow and great loss."
"And what's to be found by sitting back?" Bruenor asked.
Hralien, who had just lost a dozen friends in an orc assault on the Moonwood, and had just witnessed first-hand the attack on the dwarven wall, didn't need to use his imagination to guess the answer to that question.
"We can't be fightin' them straight up," Bruenor reasoned. "That's the way o' doom. Too many o' the stinking things." He paused and grinned, nodding his hairy head. "Unless they're attacking us, and in bits and pieces. Like the group that went into the Moonwood and the one that come over me wall. If we were ready for them, then there'd be a lot o' dead orcs."
Hralien gave a slight bow in agreement.
"So Drizzt was right," said Bruenor. "It's all about the one on top. He tried to get rid of Obould, and almost did. That'd've been the answer, and still is. If we can just get rid o' the durned Obould, we'll be tearing it all down."
"A difficult task," said Hralien.
"It's why Moradin gave me back to me boys," said Bruenor. "We're goin' to kill him, elf."
"'We're'?" asked Hralien. "Are you to spearhead an army to strike into the heart of Obould's kingdom?"
"Nah, that's just what the dog's wantin'. We'll do it the way Drizzt tried it. A small group, better'n..." He paused and a cloud passed over his face.
"Me girl won't be going," Bruenor explained. "Too hurt."
"And Wulfgar has left for the west," said Hralien, catching on to the source of Bruenor's growing despair.
"They'd be helpin', don't ye doubt."
"I do not doubt at all," Hralien assured him. "Who, then?"
"Meself and yerself, if ye're up for the fight."
The elf gave a half-bow, seeming to agree but not fully committing, and Bruenor knew he'd have to be satisfied with that.
The dwarf looked over to Regis, who nodded with increased determination, his face as grim as his cherubic features would allow.
"And Rumblebelly there," the dwarf said.
Regis took a step back, shifting uncomfortably as Hralien cast a doubtful look his way.
"He's knowing how to find his place," Bruenor assured the elf. "And he's knowin' me fightin' ways, and them o' Drizzt."
"We will collect Drizzt on our road?"
"Can ye think o' anyone ye'd want beside ye more than the drow?"
"Indeed, no, unless it was Lady Alustriel herself."
"Bah!" Bruenor snorted. "Ye won't be getting that one to agree. Meself and a few o' me boys, yerself and Drizzt, and Rumblebelly."
"To kill Obould."
"Crush his thick skull," said Bruenor. "Me and some o' me best boys. We'll be cuttin' a quiet way, right to the head o' th' ugly beast, and then let it fall where it may."
"He is formidable," Hralien warned.
"Heared the same thing about Matron Baenre o' Menzoberranzan," Bruenor replied, referring to his own fateful strike that had decapitated the drow city and ended the assault on Mithral Hall. "And we got Moradin with us, don't ye doubt. It's why he sent me back."
Hralien's posture and expression didn't show him to be completely convinced by any of it, but he nodded his agreement just the same.
"Ye help me find me drow friend," Bruenor said to him, seeing that unspoken doubt. "Then ye make yer mind up."
"Of course," Hralien agreed.
Off to the side, Regis shifted nervously. He wasn't afraid of adventuring beside Bruenor and Drizzt, even if it would be behind orc lines. But he did fear that Bruenor was reading it all wrong, and that their mission would turn out badly, for them perhaps, and for the world.
The gathering fell quiet when Banak Brawnanvil looked Bruenor in the eye and declared, "Ye're bats!"
Bruenor, however, didn't blink. "Obould's the one," he said evenly.
"Not doubtin' that," replied the irrepressible Banak, who seemed to tower over Bruenor at that moment despite the fact that he was confined to a sitting position because of his injury in the orc war. "So send Pwent and yer boys to go and get him, like ye're wantin'."
"It's me own job."
"Only because ye're a thick-headed Battlehammer!"
A few gasps filtered about the room at that proclamation, but they were diffused by a couple of chortles, most notably from the priest Cordio. Bruenor turned on Cordio with a scowl, but it fast melted against the reality of Banak's words. Truer words regarding the density of Bruenor's skull, Cordio - and Bruenor - knew, had never been spoken.
"Was meself that went to Gauntlgrym," Bruenor said. He snapped his head to Regis's direction, as if expecting the halfling to argue that it wasn't Gauntlgrym. Regis, though, wisely stayed silent. "Was meself that anchored the retreat from Keeper's Dale. Was meself that battled Obould's first attack in the north." He was gaining speed and momentum, not to bang drums for meself, as the dwarven saying went, but to justify his decision that he would personally lead the mission. "Was meself that went to Calimport to bring back Rumblebelly. Was meself that cut the damned Baenre in half!"
"I drunk enough toasts to ye to appreciate the effort," said Banak.
"And now I'm seeing one more task afore me."
"The King o' Mithral Hall's plannin' to march off behind an orc army and kill the orc king," Banak remarked. "And if ye're caught on the way? Won't yer kin here be in fine straits then in trying to bargain with Obould?"
"If ye're thinkin' I'm to be caught livin', then ye're not knowing what it is to be a Battlehammer," Bruenor retorted. "Besides, ain't no different than if Drizzt got himself caught already, or any o' the rest of us. Ye're not for changing yer ways with orcs for meself any more than ye would for any of our boys."
Banak started to respond, but really had no answer for that.
"Besides, besides," Bruenor added, "once I'm walking out that gate, I'm not the king o' Mithral Hall, which is the whole point in us being here, now ain't it?"
"I'll be yer steward, but no king is Banak," the crippled Brawnanvil argued.
"Ye'll be me steward, but if I'm not returning then yerself is the Ninth King o' Mithral Hall and don't ye be doubting it. And not a dwarf here would agree with ye if ye were."
Bruenor turned and led Banak's gaze around the room with his own, taking in the solemn nods of all the gathering, from Pwent and his Gutbusters to Cordio and the other priests to Torgar and the dwarves from Mirabar.
"This is why Moradin sent me back," Bruenor insisted. "It's me against Obould, and ye're a fool betting if ye're betting on Obould!"
That elicited a cheer around the room.
"Yerself and the drow?" Banak asked.
"Me and Drizzt," Bruenor confirmed. "And Rumblebelly's up for it, though me girl's in no place for it."
"Ye telled her that, have ye?" Banak asked with a snicker that was echoed around the room.
"Bah, but she can't be running, if running we're needing, and she'd not ever put her friends in a spot o' staying behind to protect her," said Bruenor.
"Then ye ain't telled her," said Banak, and again came the snorts.
"Bah!" Bruenor said, throwing up his hands.
"So yerself, Drizzt, and Regis," said Banak. "And Thibble dorf Pwent?"
"Try to stop me," Pwent replied, and the Gutbuster brigade cheered.
"And Pwent," said Bruenor, and the Gutbusters cheered again. Nothing seemed to excite that group quite so much as the prospect of one of their own walking off on an apparent suicide mission.
"Begging yer pardon, King Bruenor," Torgar Hammerstriker said from the other side of the room. "But me thinking is that the Mirabar boys should be represented on yer team, and me thinking's that meself and Shingles here" - he reached to the side and pulled forward the scarred old warrior, Shingles McRuff - "be just the two to do Mirabar proud."
As he finished, the other five Mirabarran dwarves in the room exploded into cheers for their mighty leader and the legendary Shingles.
"Make it seven, then," Cordio Muffinhead added. "For ye can't be goin' on a march for Moradin without a priest o' Moradin, and I'm that priest."
"Eight, then," Bruenor corrected, "for I'm thinking that Hralien o' the Moonwood won't be leaving us after we find Drizzt."
"Eight for the road and eight for Obould!" came the cheer, and it grew louder as it was repeated a second then a third time.
Then it ended abruptly, as a scowling Catti-brie came in through the door, staring hard at Bruenor with a look that had even the doubting Banak Brawnanvil looking at the dwarf king with sympathy.
"Go and do what needs doin'," Bruenor instructed them all, his voice suddenly shaky, and as the others scattered through every door in the room, Catti-brie limped toward her father.
"So you're going for Obould's head, and you're to lead it?" she asked.
Bruenor nodded. "It's me destiny, girl. It's why Moradin put me back here."
"Regis brought you back, with his pendant."
"Moradin let me go from his hall," Bruenor insisted. "And it was for a reason!"
Catti-brie stared at him long and hard. "So now you're to go out, and to take my friend Regis with you, and to take my husband with you. But I'm not welcome?"
"Ye can't run!" Bruenor argued. "Ye can hardly walk more than a few dozen yards. If we're turning from orcs, then are we to wait for yerself?"
"There'll be less turning from orcs if I'm there."
"Not for doubtin' that," said Bruenor. "But ye know ye can't do it. Not now."
"Then wait for me."
Bruenor shook his head. Catti-brie's lips grew tight and she blinked her blue eyes as if fighting back tears of frustration.
"I could lose all of you," she whispered.
Bruenor caught on then that part of her difficulty at least had to do with Wulfgar. "He'll come back," the dwarf said. "He'll walk the road that's needin' walking, but don't ye doubt that Wulfgar'll be coming back to us."
Catti-brie winced at the mention of his name, and her expression showed her to be far less convinced of that than was her father.
"But will you?" she asked.
"Bah!" Bruenor snorted, throwing up a hand as if the question was ridiculous.
"And will Regis come back? And Drizzt?"
"Drizzt is out there already," Bruenor argued. "Are ye doubtin' him?"
"No."
"Then why're ye doubting me?" asked Bruenor. "I'm out for doing the same thing Drizzt set out to do afore the winter. And he went out alone! I won't be out there alone, girl, and ye'd be smarter if ye was worrying about the damned orcs."
Catti-brie continued to look at him, and had no answer.
Bruenor opened wide his arms, inviting her to a hug that she could not resist. "Ye won't be alone, girl. Ye won't ever be alone," he whispered into her ear.
He understood fully her frustration, for would his own have been any less if he was to be left out of such a mission, when all of his friends were to go?
Catti-brie pulled back from him far enough to look him in the eye and ask, "Are you sure of this?"
"Obould's got to die, and I'm the dwarf to kill him," said Bruenor.
"Drizzt tried, and failed."
"Well Drizzt'll try again, but this time he's got friends trying with him. When we come back to ye, the orc lines'll be breaking apart. Ye'll find plenty o' fighting then, to be sure, and most of it outside our own doors. But the orcs'll be scattered and easy to kill. Take me bet now, girl, that I'll kill more than yerself."
"You're going out now, and getting a head start," Catti-brie answered, her face brightening a bit.
"Bah, but I won't count the ones I'm killing on the road," said Bruenor. "When I get back here and the orcs come on, as they're sure'n to do when Obould's no more, then I'll be killing more orcs than Catti-brie's to fell."
Catti-brie wore a sly grin. "I'll have me bow back from Drizzt then," she said, assuming a Dwarvish accent as she threw out the warning. "Every arrow's taking one down. Some'll take down two, or might even be three."
"And every swipe o' me axe is cutting three in half," Bruenor countered. "And I'm not for tiring when there're orcs to cut."
The two stared at each other without blinking as each extended a hand to shake on the bet.
"The loser represents Mithral Hall at the next ceremony in Nesme," Catti-brie said, and Bruenor feigned a grimace, as though he hadn't expected the stakes to be quite so high.
"Ye'll enjoy the journey," the dwarf said. He smiled and tried to pull back, but Catti-brie held his hand firmly and stared him in the eye, her expression solemn.
"Just get back to me, alive, and with Drizzt, Regis, and the others alive," she said.
"Plannin' on it," said Bruenor, though he didn't believe it any more than did Catti-brie. "And with Obould's ugly head.
Catti-brie agreed. "With Obould's head."
